Search

Half-Heusler (HH) alloys are an important class of thermoelectric materials that combine promising performance with good engineering properties. This manuscript reports a variable temperature synchrotron x-ray diffraction study of several TiNiSn- and VFeSb-based HH alloys. A Debye model was found to capture the main trends in thermal expansion and atomic displacement parameters. The linear thermal expansion coefficient α(T) of the TiNiSn-based samples was found to be independent of alloying or presence of Cu interstitials with α av = 10.1 × 10−6 K−1 between 400 and 848 K. The α(T) of VFeSb and TiNiSn are well-matched, but NbFeSb has a reduced α av = 8.9 × 10−6 K−1, caused by a stiffer lattice structure. This is confirmed by analysis of the Debye temperatures, which indicate significantly larger bond force constants for all atomic sites in NbFeSb. This work also reveals substantial amounts of Fe interstitials in VFeSb, whilst these are absent for NbFeSb. The Fe interstitials are linked to low thermal conductivities, but also reduce the bandgap and lower the onset of thermal bipolar transport.

International audience; The preparation and characterization of pure fluorite-type phases allowed exploring the CeO2–ZrO2–PrOx (CZP) phase diagram. On the basis of magnetic susceptibility measurements, the Pr4+/Pr3+ molar ratio of several oxides annealed at T = 700 °C under air was determined; the higher the Zr content, the lower the Pr4+ concentration. Thermogravimetric analysis and temperature-programmed reduction measurements showed various Pr and Ce reduction steps. The Pr4+ reduction starts at T = 250 °C and is maximum around T = 400 °C. For the most reducible compositions, which exhibit the lowest Zr content and the highest Pr rate, the reduction phenomena strongly depend on the Pr/Ce molar ratio. As a remarkable result, Pr and Ce reductions can simultaneously take place at lower temperature (T > 430 °C) than for oxides of the CeO2–ZrO2 solid solution evidencing that the increase of Pr content also allows enhancing the reducibility of Ce4+ at low temperature. On the basis of a discussion taking into account the probability of oxygen surroundings in disordered fluorite networks and the rate of oxygen released in materials after the first reduction step performed at T < 500 °C, a mapping of the most probable labile oxygen sites in the CZP phase diagram is proposed. In particular, it is shown that for the oxides containing 10 atom % Zr, the most labile oxygen site should be systematically coordinated with one Zr atom, one Ce, and two Pr atoms. In the same series (10 atom % Zr), the electronic transport properties allowed showing semiconducting behavior with a strong increase of the total conductivity as the Pr content increases. On the basis of the thermal variation of the Seebeck coefficient, these phenomena are associated with hopping of electrons and holes, involving intra-atomic charge transfers, which depend on the reduction temperature of Pr4+ ions under air. Finally, the oxygen mobility strongly increases with the Pr content in this series. The oxygen tracer self-diffusion coefficient D* has been estimated by two independent measurements, and the best value is around 10–8 cm2/s at T = 400 °C for the Ce0.45Zr0.1Pr0.45O2–x composition, which is quite high in this temperature range. These fundamental properties of CZP phases design very promising new materials like automotive exhaust catalysts, gas sensors, electrolytes, or oxygen electrodes for solid oxide fuel cells.

S.R.P. and J.W.G.B. acknowledge the EPSRC (grant EP/N01717X/1) and Leverhulme Trust (grant RPG-2012-576) for financial support and the STFC for the provision of beam time at ISIS. F.D.M. acknowledges the EPSRC for financial support (grant EP/P024637/1). M.S.S. acknowledges the Royal Society for a University Research Fellowship (grant UF160265). The phonon-glass electron crystal concept is one of the key guiding principles for the development of efficient thermoelectric materials. Here, we confirm that SrTiO 3 becomes a phonon-glass for large numbers of A-site vacancies in the Sr 1-x La 0.67x → 0.33x TiO 3 series and show that its electron crystal properties are stymied by the presence of a core-shell grain structure. Thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and neutron powder diffraction, complemented by representational analysis and phonon calculations, were used to investigate the thermal transport. This reveals that the heat carrying modes are dominated by Sr motions and that these become more localized upon the introduction of the A-site vacancies, consistent with the observed phonon-glass state. Impedance spectroscopy and direct current electrical measurements were used to probe the electrical properties of insulating and conducting samples. This reveals the coring of grains due to oxidation on cooling from sintering temperatures. The resultant insulating shell limits the thermoelectric power factor to S 2 /ρ = 0.45 mW m -1 K -2 and the figure-of merit to ZT = 0.15 at 900 K for Sr 0.20 La 0.53 → 0.27 Ti 0.95 Nb 0.05 O 3?δ . The thermal properties of these materials are, therefore, controlled by an intrinsic feature of the microstructure (i.e., the A-site vacancies), whereas the electrical properties are grain boundary limited, which in principle can be controlled independently to raise S 2 /ρ and ZT. Postprint

This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2012-576). Single crystals of SnSe have been reported to have very high thermoelectric efficiencies with a maximum figure merit zT = 2.5. This outstanding performance is due to ultralow thermal conductivities. We report on the synthesis of highly textured polycrystalline SnSe ingots with large single-crystal magnitude power factors, S2/ρ = 0.2-0.4 mW m-1 K-2 between 300-600 K, increasing to 0.9 mW m-1 K-2 at 800 K, and bulk thermal conductivity values κ300K = 1.5 W m-1 K-1. However, small SnSe ingots, which were measured in their entirety, were found to have a substantially reduced κ300K = 0.6 W m-1 K-1. Microscopy and diffraction revealed two distinct types of texturing within the hot-pressed ingots. In the interior, large coherent domains of SnSe platelets with a ∼45° orientation with respect to the pressing direction are found, while the platelets are preferentially oriented at 90° to the pressing direction at the top and bottom of the ingots. Fitting the κ(T) data suggests an increase in defect scattering for the smaller ingots, which is in keeping with the presence of regions of structural disorder due to the change in texturing. Combining the measured S2/ρ with the bulk ingot κ values yields zT = 1.1 at 873 K. Postprint

International audience; Lamellar AxCoO2 cobalt double oxides with A = Li, Na, and K (x 0.6) have been synthesized and their chemical (alkali content, oxidation state, and structure) and physical (resistivity, thermopower, magnetization, and specific heat) properties have been studied. All the three materials exhibit strong electron correlation emphasized by their behavior ranging from Fermi liquid to spin-polarized system. Our results show that both the dimensionality of the interactions and the nature of the alkali play a determining role on the properties.

International audience; Well crystallized VO2 (A) microrods were grown via a single step hydrothermal reaction in the presence of V2O5 and oxalic acid. With the advantage of high crystalline samples, we propose P4/ncc as an appropriate space group at room temperature. From morphological studies, we found that the oriented attachment and layer by layer growth mechanisms are responsible for the formation of VO2 (A) micro rods. The structural and electronic transitions in VO2 (A) are strongly first order in nature, and a marked difference between the structural transition temperatures and electronic transitions temperature was evidenced. The reversible intra- (LTP-A to HTP-A) and irreversible inter- (HTP-A to VO2 (M1)) structural phase transformations were studied by in-situ powder X-ray diffraction. Attempts to increase the size of the VO2 (A) microrods are presented and the possible formation steps for the flower-like morphologies of VO2 (M1) are described.

International audience; The possible existence of an intermediate spin state is now a few decades fascinating solid state chemists and physicists, experimentalists, and theoreticians. In this article, we revise some recent results on the stability diagrams of spin states, low, high, or intermediate, in distorted environments and extend their approach to redraw more realistic diagrams for d(4), d(5), and d(6) ions in a tetragonally distorted 6-fold oxygen environment (D4h, D2d, and C4ν). The model relies on a point charge model and further uses effective parameters to account for the cubic field drift on spin state change and for suitable values for solid state of the expectation values of the 3d-radial wave functions; additionally the model uses rational parameters to characterize the distortion; finally, we also consider the possible existence of states' combinations to propose reliable stability diagrams. Whatever the representation involved in the distortion, the existence domain of the intermediate spin state appears very small and more likely replaced with mixtures of cations in low and high spin states; the opportunity of induced distortive ordering is discussed.

International audience; The magnetic properties and the magnetocaloric effect are presented for the perovskite-related oxide SrFe0.5Co0.5O3 prepared using electrochemical oxidation. SrFe0.5Co0.5O3 exhibits a second order paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transition close to room temperature (TC=330 K). The maximal magnetic entropy change ΔSMMax , the maximal adiabatic temperature change ΔTad and the refrigerant capacity are found to be equal to respectively 4.0 J/kgK, 1.8 K and 258 J/kg while raising the B-field change from 0 to 5 T.

Various P2 and P'3-Na(x)CoO(2) phases, with x ranging approximately from 0.6 to 0.75, have been studied by variable-temperature (23)Na magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR. Signal modification versus temperature plots clearly show that Na(+) ions are not totally mobile at room temperature on the NMR time scale. As the temperature increases, the line shape change of the (23)Na MAS NMR signal differs for the P2 and P'3 stackings and is interpreted by the differences of Na(+) ion sites and of sodium diffusion pathways in the two structures.

International audience; A polytype of LiCoO2 has been synthesized through an ion-exchange reaction. By exchanging Na+ for Li+ ions from an OP4-(Li/Na)CoO2-mixed cobaltite, a LiCoO2 stacking is obtained. It alternatively combines O2- and O3-LiCoO2 polytypes and corresponds to an O4 stacking. The phase crystallizes in the hexagonal system with cell parameters ahex = 2.802(1) Å and chex = 18.89(2) Å. As the O2 phase, the O4-LiCoO2, is metastable; it transforms into the thermodynamically stable O3-LiCoO2at around 350–400°C. The crystallographic data, the thermal properties, and the electrochemical behavior of this phase are presented.

International audience; The relevance of (bulk) transition-metal oxides for thermoelectric generation is discussed. A large power factor (i.e., a large electronic conductivity coexisting with a large Seebeck coefficient) seems more easily achievable in either hopping-type semiconductors or in highly correlated metallic systems such as layered cobaltites.

This paper is devoted to a comparative study of the AxCoO2 (A = Li, Na and K) systems. For x ~ 0.6, all the investigated alkali cobaltites exhibit a metallic-like behavior. Potassium cobaltites exhibit a T2 dependence of the resistivity - suggesting a Fermi liquid character - and an enhanced Pauli type paramagnetism ascribed to electronic correlations. On the other hand lithium and sodium compounds show linear temperature dependence for the resistivity down to 4 K, a large thermopower above room temperature and a Curie-Weiss paramagnetism denoting larger electronic correlations. Physical properties of these cobaltites are discussed in details especially in the case of K-ordered and disordered K0.6CoO2 phases.

A round robin test aiming at measuring the high-temperature thermoelectric properties was carried out by a group of European (mainly French) laboratories (labs). Polycrystalline skutterudite Co0.97 Ni 0.03Sb3 was characterized by Seebeck coefficient (8 labs), electrical resistivity (9 labs), thermal diffusivity (6 labs), mass volume density (6 labs), and specific heat (6 labs) measurements. These data were statistically processed to determine the uncertainty on all these measured quantities as a function of temperature and combined to obtain an overall uncertainty on the thermal conductivity (product of thermal diffusivity by density and by specific heat) and on the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT. An increase with temperature of all these uncertainties is observed, in agreement with growing difficulties to measure these quantities when temperature increases. The uncertainties on the electrical resistivity and thermal diffusivity are most likely dominated by the uncertainty on the sample dimensions. The temperature-averaged (300–700 K) relative standard uncertainties at the confidence level of 68% amount to 6%, 8%, 11%, and 19% for the Seebeck coefficient, electrical resistivity, thermal conductivity, and figure of merit ZT, respectively. Thermal conductivity measurements appear as the least accurate. The moderate value of the temperature-averaged relative expanded (confidence level of 95%) uncertainty of 17% on the mean of ZT is essential in establishing Co0.97 Ni 0.03Sb3 as a high temperature standard n-type thermoelectric material.

not Available.

not Available.

Lamellar cobalt double oxides and vanadium oxides have recently attracted tremendous interestafter the discovery of their interesting thermoelectric properties. Our efforts aimed at synthesizingnovel related compounds using standard solid state, ion exchange and/or hydrothermaltechniques. In order to modulate and optimize their thermoelectric characteristics, we have tunedthe composition of cobalt double oxides by appropriate substitutions. In quasi 1D vanadiumoxides, the interplay between spin, charge and orbital degrees of freedom often leads toremarkable properties. Here we dealt with three different polymorphs of vanadium dioxide,namely M1, A and B. We explored the several novel systems by constructing systematic phasediagrams. We also studied the effect of Mo and Cr:V substitution on the stability of thesepolymorphs and characterized their electronic properties in relation with the structural phasetransition mechanisms. Finally, we explored their potentiality for thermoelectric applications., Les oxydes doubles lamellaires de cobalt et les oxydes de vanadium ont récemment suscité un vifintérêt suite à la découverte de leurs propriétés thermoélectriques prometteuses. Nos efforts visentà synthétiser de nouveaux composés dérivés de ces systèmes en utilisant la synthèse à l'étatsolide, l'échange d'ions et/ou les techniques hydrothermales. Afin de moduler et d'optimiser leurscaractéristiques thermoélectriques, nous avons ajusté la composition des oxydes de cobalt grâce àdes substitutions appropriées. Au sein du dioxyde de vanadium quasi-1D, nous avons considérétrois différentes structures polymorphes : M1, A et B. Nous avons exploré les différents systèmesen construisant l’ensemble des diagrammes de phases. Nous avons également étudié l'effet de lasubstitution du vanadium par le molybdène et le chrome sur la stabilité de ces structurespolymorphes et caractérisé leurs propriétés électroniques en relation avec les mécanismes detransition de phase.